The invention relates generally to aircraft cockpit displays, and more specifically to a cockpit display that shows a three dimensional tactical situation on a flat image display.
Modern military aircraft have available many different sensors for determining the position and type of tactical threats and targets surrounding the aircraft and pilot. While some of this information, particularly the presence (even if without directional information) of an immediate threat, can be given to the pilot very quickly, it is very difficult to impart the entire three dimensional tactical situation surrounding the aircraft without overwhelming the pilot. Fighter pilots prize and are highly trained to develop their situational awareness (SA). Yet, they frequently complain of an inability to deal with all the information being presented and often turn off or ignore/many of their systems to reduce the informational "clutter" to more manageable proportions.
Newer, more powerful, on-board computers for aircraft, and newer display hardware and software, now make possible much greater levels of preprocessing of the raw sensor data received by the aircraft and manipulating that data to generate sophisticated displays that will provide maximum information in a manner which fighter pilots can quickly understand and use. Unfortunately, despite many advances, the prior art has thus far failed to take full advantage of these new computing capabilities and has not provided a successful example of such a display.
One problem in providing a quickly understandable and useful display is that fighter pilots are individuals and have different abilities and preferences for methods of presenting information that they can use. While pilots may choose which displays they pay particular attention to, they lose the benefit of other information which may be useful to them, but which is hidden with other, not as useful, information in a not chosen display.
Another problem is that different information, and displays, are useful at different times. Switching attention from one display to another disorients the pilot for a period of time.
A pilot's tactical situation is three dimensional. Unfortunately, the output formats of most aircraft displays are still only two dimensional flat images. Notwithstanding, flat image displays have undergone large improvements in recent years. Heads-up displays, or HUD's, project a see-through display of selected important information over the instrument panel in front of the pilot. Another development, the helmet mounted display, or HMD, projects a see-through display that appears to float in front of the pilot's eyes and rotates along several axes in response to head and helmet movement to maintain an apparent position of the display at a fixed location on or near the instrument panel.
It is thus seen that there is a need for a computer generated display that provides a pilot, in a flat image display format, information that efficiently communicates, without overwhelming a complete awareness of the surrounding tactical situation.
It is, therefore, a principal object of the present invention to provide a display, capable of being computer generated, that provides a pilot in a flat image display format complete awareness of the surrounding tactical situation.
It is another object of the present invention to provide in a flat image display format a three dimensional view.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide a variety of different views to meet different needs of different pilots, or operators, at different times and in different tactical situations.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a display format that is easily adapted for improving the effectiveness of other detecting and tracking tasks.
It is an advantage of the present invention that moving among different views is made substantially without disorienting discontinuous steps or jumps.